Three Ways To Increase Your Faith

The Christian life is a communal one. It can be hard to maintain your faith anyway, but it's particularly difficult if you don't have a church home or your church is not meeting in person. Here are three ways you can strengthen your spiritual life even if you don't have a faith community with whom to share it.

Online Services

One of the benefits of the internet is that there are abundant resources to help you learn about God. If you are hungry for conversations where you delve into popular Bible questions and answers, an online service can feed that need. Some online meetings are simply videos you can watch at your leisure while others are more interactive, allowing you to actually participate in the conversation. No matter how involved you want to be in the service, there is likely an opportunity waiting for you online.

Community Involvement

Feeding the hungry and tending to the less fortunate are two of the basic tenets of the Christian faith. You can satisfy the desire to serve others through nonprofit organizations in your community. If you have a specific passion in mind, a quick online search can lead you to a group in your city that shares it. Caring for others is a good way to connect to the heart of Christ, and you may end up meeting like-minded people who invite you to their church.

Gratitude Reflection

Personal reflection and an individual connection to God are also important. Praise is founded in gratitude. Take a few minutes each day to reflect on your life and the things for which you are thankful. Write them down in a gratitude journal so that you can refer back to them during hard times as a reminder of what you have been given.

The church is a collection of people who love God. You can still practice your faith, though, even if you're between church families.

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Music Upgrade in the Church

It’s always a good thing for me to update our musical instrument in the church because quality instrument brings about good music. Praise and worship wouldn’t be so good without a good musicality and with that a clear and good-sounding background instrument is the only solution. Well our church is not rich as its members are ordinary people only but we strive hard to save money to invest on the things we need in our fellowship. 

The ministers had their special meeting to give attention on how we can source out funds for new musical instruments and they came up with a timeline that will give ample period for the members to give their share. Since we all want an inspiring singing during our Sunday and Wednesday fellowship it’s not hard to ask for pledges from all of us. Just now I was browsing through avalon u5 and some other equipment and accessories that would be a nice addition to the instruments we’re planning to buy.

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Blissful Fellowship Vacation in Baguio City

Now that holiday has passed and we’re back to regular life I only have our pictures in the upper cold city to look at to remember our fulfilling vacation a week ago. We always go there during Christmas holidays as it’s the best time of the year when we can allocate longer holidays to have fellowship and vacation as well. It was a very happy occasion for us from the day that we travel in one big bus accommodating all of us to the day that we packed our things back to Manila. It was like a field trip as few people travel like us in great number. 

We’ve rented a three-storey house, the same house we’ve stayed for 3 consecutive years now, where we held our fellowship in the morning and where we stayed after our visits to different tourist places in Baguio city. We cooked in the morning before the fellowship and spend lunch time to different restaurants before giving ourselves a taste of our vacation like going to popular spots in the place, enjoying the cold weather and scenic view in the park, buying some souvenirs and delicacies and giving our families the best bonding moments. 

The place is perfect not just for relaxation but for enjoying music as well. We brought our guitar and let the music ride with the cool winds. If only we could bring some of our bigger instruments too so we can have complete music like bach trombone, keyboards or drums but we know it’s impossible to do it as we only travel in commercial buses and not in our own cars. Maybe we can just do it in our summer camp as we always held it not so far from our places.

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Value of Having Your Own Checklist

Every time we have camp meeting fellowship schedule on faraway provinces I always see to it that I do my own checklist to remind me of the things to do and to buy. I want everything planned and completely done so my checklist helps me a lot in doing that.

Since our camp sites were always far from the market and stores I see to it that I have my kids’ clothes, food and necessities carefully and neatly packed separately. Oftentimes I have extras for emergency purposes and these extras proved to be of help to my church mates who sometimes run out of stocks. I list everything from mineral water to food to clothes up to the things needed in our car. I’ve trained my kids also on checking my list so when it’s time for packing they do their own. How about you? What are your ways of ensuring that everything you need are packed?

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Fellowship Venue

It’s summer here and the kids are on their 2-month vacation. Last week we had our summer camp fellowship in one of the venues next our town where you can enjoy the vast garden with green trees and landscape while praying and meditating. It’s a prayer garden usually frequented by group of people who wants to held retreat, fellowship, bible study or any group activities that needs a quiet place to spend time for sharing the word of God. We had a great time and we actually want to extend our stay but we also need a one-day break before Sunday fellowship so we followed our schedule.

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Camp Meeting Preparation

Last Sunday we had a meeting in the church about our forthcoming summer camp meeting. We’ve already made reservation on our former camp site which is also the retreat place of my daughters’ school. We’ve grown used to the place since we’ve rented it for four camp meetings already and it’s more accessible than our camp site in Indang, Cavite near Tagaytay City. We always spent our holy week on summer camp fellowship where we bring all our things and food for 2-3 days on chosen camp site , sleep on tents at night and have fellowship services in the morning and afternoon.

We stay together for the whole period and no one’s going home until the camp meeting is finished. This is the reason why we need to bring our vehicles and carry all our things such as emergency kits, foodies, clothes, sleeping bags and tents. Most of our vehicles carry too much baggage that I’m thinking of having those whispbar roof racks on our cars so we will be able to maximize car space. Of course even with heavy baggage we still want our car to maintain its good looks so having nice roof racks will definitely be an advantage. It can carry high load capacity on different terrain without looking messed up.

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Preparation for December Camp Fellowship

Since we’re going to Baguio for our December camp meeting I’m now making a list of the things to bring for our four-day stay there. We’ve reserved few months ago in one of the buildings there but changed our mind when a friend of my Mom offered her 3-storey vacation house. It was such a blessing for us as we’re going to spend huge amount of money just for the venue site only. DH, Pastor and 2 others went there last week to check the house and when they finally saw it they’ve decided that it can suffice for our needs. They even saw that the 3rd floor would be ideal for our fellowship service and the other floors have plenty of foambymail latex mattresses for our sleeping beds.

We will just bring extra blankets for extra warmth and buy some basic disposable dining wares so we will not be using the house owner’s things. Since we want to travel light we will buy our groceries and food when we get there as there are plenty of supermarket and stores where we can get all our supplies. We’ll be having common food for all now that we’ve saved a lot of our venue money . All in all we have everything we need this coming December and we just have to continue with saving some of our money so we’ll have enough to spend on our vacation and fellowship. Everyone is excited and looking forward to having our fellowship first time in the summer capital.

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Safety Travel

Last Sunday afternoon we held a general meeting regarding our fellowship plan this coming December in the mountainous region of Benguet particularly in Baguio city. All topics were initially settled especially the first plan to hire a passenger asian utility vehicle but it was opposed by some church member because we have no experience driving in the 7 long hours of travel from manila to baguio using that particular vehicle. 

The very reason is for safe travel and to minimize hiring legal officers like Brooklyn Accident Lawyer when we encounter accident due to its mountainous and isolated roads. We decided to commute using local bus line because they are very familiar with the route and passes those zigzag roads daily. Besides it will be fun and comfortable to travel in the luxurious seats of the buses travelling that route.

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New Church Site

We visited our church reserved site for our next church location as we're moving out of our present location. We're just happy that before the August due date we're able to get a new one and it's just few minutes from our old site.

We dropped by Kamias St. and went to ML Bldg. We used a big vehicle to transport us all because we're around 20 plus members who went there. We're in the fourth floor and a sudden rush of memory came rushing in my mind. I remembered going here in the past when I was still in DSI and I was asked by my office mate to get her loan form for her. It's still the same stairs and the same rooms. What a coincidence! The place is nice and clean and the community seems very quiet we fear we'll be having problems with our sound system.

We planned how we are going to place our equipment and the division that must be constructed to have reception, sunday school and fellowship room. There are so many things to plan, do and arrange and we'll do it on the last Sunday of July or first day of August. I know God will help us finish everything on time to settle our church best.

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Summer Camp Fellowship At Indang, Cavite

We traveled early at 4am and headed to our meeting place in GMA Cavite. We had a very clear sky on our way to Indang, Cavite passing through the towns of Cavite and Tagaytay City. I’ve always love seeing the majestic volcano, rows of vacation townhouses and beautiful sceneries of the place. The weather suddenly changed. It’s colder in Tagaytay and Indang Cavite that’s why I love the place, just the right temperature for comfort. We reached the place around 8am and every one took their share of responsibilities to get our service started. Of course mothers were the busiest with their children and baggage to take care of.

We’re now far from Manila and away from the bustling city of traffic and pollution. It’s nice to breathe the air there, fresher and smelling like the newly cut grass of the field. At this time of the year the flowers were blooming everywhere, great for my flower photography session. Kids and adults were simply happy to be far from their homes once in a while; even if it’s a summer camp fellowship we can also say that it’s also a vacation for us.

We had a fulfilling day of praising songs, testimonies, and messages and on night time we had communion and feet washing. We ended the night with big bonfire. On the second day the ministers had their dawn service which gave them a very good foundation for the second day’s fellowship as all burdens were unloaded and a feeling of lightness within themselves transpired to give them energy for the day. At the end of our fellowship we felt like extending our stay there as two days were not enough for us. We decided to reserve longer period on our December camp.

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Summer Camp Reminders and Last Minute Details

We held the last meeting for our summer camp fellowship and we discussed service ministers assigned, food schedule and volume, youth fellowship and kids’ activities. Everyone was reminded of the instruments assigned to carry on their vehicle. Parents were requested to bring all necessary items, food and clothing for their children as we don’t encourage going out of the camp just to go to the market.

As the place is a very wide area villa with plantation around the camp place we’ll have a bonfire to keep us warm and to ward off mosquitoes, mothers should take precaution on this so they were told to have off lotion. Everything was listed and everyone was reminded on so we’ll just have to be equipped with all essentials for a successful and worry-free camp meeting.

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